The Angry, the Ugly, and the Anonymous

Yesterday I posted about my (hopefully) impending arrival of my new Luma mesh wifi system. I’m eager to put it through its paces.

As excited as I am, however, there seem to be people who are becoming increasingly angry at the wait. Let me run down a few.

The team at luma had always said their pre-order price would eventually go up to it’s full retail cost before the devices shipped. When I first place my order, they were saying the pre-order price would end in February. In late march they began raising the price for pre-orders and announced that they would slowly be increasing the price until the product finally shipped. This is no way increased the price for people who had already placed orders. One Facebook commenter declared that raising the price without telling its customers was something a “reputable company” wouldn’t do.

A similar product to Luma began shipping in mid-March, which led several Facebook fans to begin complaining about Luma being “late.” These comments were made even though Luma has always maintained they would be shipping in Spring 2016. Mid-March is not Spring.

Luma began beta testing their product to make sure manufacturing and software were up to snuff. It’s clear they had a type of setup in mind for beta testers, as they believed these would be best for “kicking the tires” of the new product. People began complaining their beta applications hadn’t be accepted. Undaunted, Luma began sharing results of the Beta test with their customers and Facebook fans. This led someone to declare looking at beta test results wasn’t good enough for them.

When Spring arrived, people seemed to think they deserved to get their Lumas. So some began to complain about Luma was “late” or that they had missed the date they said and should refund money (even though people can cancel their own orders any time before the products ship). This anger has been growing among a few even though, Luma is giving some pretty terrific insights into the beta test results and a nice glimpse into the manufacturing process. In order words, they are “on track,” and are giving evidence to that fact, which is what they have always maintained. This doesn’t matter to some people, I guess it just easier to be angry and personally offended by other parties.

I see this type of reaction quite frequently on the internet. And it makes me wonder why we think we are entitled to be obnoxious and mean and ugly toward others when we don’t get our way? This also happens in “meat space” as well, of course, but the lack of an incarnational presence on the Internet makes this type of dehumanizing behavior much more prevalent.